Art of Electronics is a very good book, but if you want to learn from a fun / programming point of view I highly recommend "Making Things Talk", by Tom Igoe.
I'll 2nd on Art of electronics.. But knowing the basics before touching it would be better
It might be worthwhile to note that third edition of the book is in the works (supposedly). Given that the current (2nd) edition was published almost 20 years ago, I'm waiting to get the 3rd one. This page claims it's scheduled to be published in February 2009: http://isbn.nu/0521809266